It Still Hurts
by DarkSideOfTheMoon-X
Summary: This is what happens when the TARDIS takes control of my plot bunnies. Listen to her story.
1. Hurting

AN: Spoilers for LOTL - since it's the TARDIS thinking and healing after the events that happen within it. Do leave a review if you should feel so inclined.

**It Still Hurts**

She's still healing, even now. He had cannibalised her, and laughed at her screams of agony. She had never known such pain. The paradox ripped her apart, healed her briefly, and then ripped her apart all over again. She had thought that losing her soul sister would have been the worst pain she would ever face, but being broken while you were still fixing yourself... It had proved her wrong.

What had happened to her dear little Koschei? What had he become? Sometimes, she briefly caught a glimpse of him, and it would spark hope, but then the Master would return, and Koschei would be little more than a memory. It was only when he laughed at her pain that it really sank in. Her Koschei was dead, long dead. All that remained was the Master, and she hated him.

But oh... it hurt so much to hate him. She would think of him, during the brief periods of healing before the paradox ripped her apart again, of Koshei and Theta, the little peas in a pod she loved so much. Theta still remained, well hidden, most times, but she knew he was there, and quite often he came through.

His anguish and anger at what the Master had done to her was what really hurt, and hurts even now. She didn't know how two so similar could become so different┘ It was like her and the Bad Wolf becoming sworn enemies - unthinkable to her.

She had cried out many times for Bad Wolf while the Master caused her pain. He would snap at her, tell her not to talk such rubbish, that the Bad Wolf was only a myth, and whenever he did, she would zap him with whatever strength she had, defending her soul sister. Just a myth.

Was it a myth that healed a TARDIS' soul?  
Was it a myth that ended the Time War?  
Was it a myth that the Doctor owes his life to?  
Was it a myth that saved the world?

What she wouldn't have given then for the courage of the Bad Wolf.

It still hurts. The loss of a soul sister, the loss of Koschei, the pain of the Doctor, her little Theta, and she herself still hurts from the paradox machine. It hurts to look at Jack, and know what will become of him, and know why.

It hurts so much, and Theta isn't strong enough to help her.

But with a (metaphorical) smile, she knows she has one lifeline. She may have lost all she needed to heal, but she didn't lose hope.

After all, even though she stayed behind, she's still got her medical Martha Jones, and a promise.

And for now, that's enough.


	2. Thoughtless

Thoughtless

She didn't mean to crash straight into the Titanic. It worries her that she did. Of course, she reasons, it probably didn't help that both pilot and TARDIS were deep in thought. Apart from that, she blames her age.

Donna is back. That's good. She always did make her laugh somewhat. She brings a much needed smile around. And what's more, she understands. That is quite possibly the greatest gift of all. She knows about Rose, and she doesn't mind.

The TARDIS can remember Donna telling Theta to find someone. None of them knew that she would be the someone a year or so later. Funny how things work out really. She is - the TARDIS thinks - what Theta needs. Even when he cries for Koschei, Donna is there for him.

With a wry smile, the TARDIS knows Donna would probably be the last person to sympathise about Koschei if she could have remembered the year that never was. Donna survived that year, the TARDIS remembers suddenly. Through her own courage (as yet somewhat undiscovered since she's been sent back to where she was) she survived everything thrown at her.

That's comforting. Donna is - at the moment - the strength that comforts the both of them. She'll talk absently to a wall, and the TARDIS will listen, sometimes responding as best she can to a non-telepathic being, and it takes her mind of things.

She is not quite sure what Donna does so well to comfort Theta. But she is glad she does. When they do eventually get back to saving the universe, she will be glad. That will mean things are back to normal. Perhaps then she can forget a few things, and the pain will lessen.

They say time is the greatest healer, but the TARDIS knows that to be a lie. She is time, more or less, and she certainly doesn't heal very well.

She thinks she knows what the greatest healer is, and has seen it in play many times over, and each time, it makes her a little stronger.

She sees it now, and is stronger again.

It's hope. Hope is the greatest healer of them all.

So when the words Bad Wolf cross her path again, she thinks to herself whether she dares to hope.

But then she sees the look on her Theta's face, and she dares.

And she knows in that moment, that for any of them, whether its Susan or Donna, or every one who came in between, she will dare for them all.

She will hope.

And she knows that she may die an old fool, still hoping, but that doesn't matter anymore.

And as the sound of laughter fills the console room, she realises something else. She thought for a long time that she was too old to care anymore. But now she sees differently.

She does care. Her eyes have been opened again, and it's made life worth living. (Or risking, as is often the case) She doesn't care how long she's got left, because she is going to live for them all. Everyone she lost, she will keep alive within her heart.

As she crash lands, and feels the power of her vortex fading rapidly, she calls out, and doesn't know what made her do it. But as she does, her call is answered, and a wolf comes to her rescue.

Vaguely, she wonders what did it, her wolf-sister, the crash landing, or Theta's sheer joy.

Either way, she doesn't care.

Because finally, after so long, it doesn't hurt anymore. 


	3. My Sister

My Sister.

She watches her wolf-sister, and smiles. They have come so far, both together and alone. She is the shoulder that she never had, and never knew she needed until it came along.

She can▓t help but laugh when she thinks back to the very beginning. It had been a rocky relationship, if truth be told. Rose hadn▓t wanted her in her head, even to translate languages. She wanted to do everything herself, to learn rather than to rely.

It took her a while to realise this about her wolf-sister, but as soon as she did it made her love her even more.

At first she hadn▓t been at all sure about her. She wasn▓t ready to go gallivanting off on more adventures after the Time War, though Theta needed the distraction until a cure for his loneliness and grief came along. She wasn▓t ready for another companion.

The girl who had entered her first of all, as much as she had hated to admit it back then, had indeed caught her attention. Back then she didn▓t know what it was, but something was definitely there.

That was why she convinced Theta to go back and ask again. Mention time, she had said. Time seems to be important with her. Though she could never quite think why, until Rose took her rightful place, as the soul sister of a TARDIS, naming herself the Bad Wolf.

As time went by, she grew to love her. Rose was the cure for Theta, and even the cure for herself. A cure she hadn▓t even been aware she needed. Even back then there was a connection with her.

So when the time came for their souls to be joined, she would have opened her heart to her sooner, if she was capable of doing it herself.

The memory loss had been deliberate, for she knew Theta wouldn▓t be able to handle a regeneration and a Bad Wolf. She gave her wolf-sister her memories back, little by little. Dream by dream. She knows her wolf-sister is grateful for not knowing it all in one go.

She watches her wolf-sister, and smiles.

She is so much more than when she first stepped aboard.  
She is a legend, her name written clearly across the whole of time and space. She is a warrior, fighting for all she believes in. She is a mother, to whoever needs her. She is the void crosser. She is the lover of a Time Lord.  
She is the soul sister of a TARDIS.  
She is the impossible. She is the Bad Wolf.

And she is fantastic. 


End file.
